Saturday, 15 June 2013

Recipe: Mexican Bean Dip

If you're anything like me, you always have a tub of houmous & a bag of carrot batons in your fridge. I am fanatical about houmous. In fact any kind of yummy dip that I can munch my way through a bag of raw veggies with is basically my dream food. One thing I've never done though, is made my own houmous before. I have my guacamole recipe perfected to a tee (another thing I always have in my kitchen- avocados) but houmous is not really the kind of thing you can just pull out of the stuff you have in your cupboard, because one thing I never think to buy is tahini.

I was considering taking a trip to the deli to see if I could get some houmous ingredients together when I spotted a tin of cannellini beans at the back of my cupboard & thought I'd have a go at making a bean dip instead. I had a quick Google around for a basic method & then sort of winged it from there, and this is what I came up with.

You will need:

1 tin of cannellini beans (these are so handy to have lying around because they make a great mash potato substitute if you can't be bothered with all the fuss)

100mls olive oil

1 lime

a good handful of coriander (cilantro for you Americans!)

1 teaspoon of smoked paprika (I always have this to hand it's so good I put it in everything)

2-3 garlic cloves depending on how big they are/how much you like garlic.

a pinch of dried chilli flakes (or more if you want more heat but I didn't want too much)

sea salt flakes, to taste.

a food processor or blender

First, drain & rinse your beans in a colander, (this is the hardest part of the whole process, seriously, this dip is so easy a child could make it). Then, basically, add everything (except the salt) to a food processor & whiz up until it's as smooth as you like it. Add the salt until it's to your taste. Et voila! The easiest thing to prepare ever.

Serve with chopped raw veggies like carrots, sugar snap peas or sweet mini peppers, or with tortilla chips. Or both!

And that's all there is to it! It's SOO GOOD too. The best part is that I normally have all this stuff in my kitchen anyway- it's a real store cupboard recipe that you can just pull out whenever you need to. I'm also going to try adding other combinations of herbs & spices to my bean dips too! If you want to keep it for a while it will probably last for about 4 days in the fridge in a jar or similar airtight container. I dare say that this little jar of bean dip is even better than my beloved houmous...

xoxo

Hi I'm Sam! I'm a 29 year old Northern Irish girl living in the North East of England. I like makeup, a good bargain, baking, gin, dogs and building forts. I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up.